AHF: Tweet with us to #EndHIVStigma this World AIDS Day!

The baseless fear and hatred of people living with HIV/AIDS –
commonly called HIV stigma – is gaining attention worldwide as being a
major impediment to the fight against the spread of the virus, and AIDS
Healthcare Foundation is asking everyone to help battle the stigma by
spreading knowledge through Twitter on World AIDS Day

AIDS
Healthcare Foundation (AHF) invites everyone to join the fight
against HIV stigma this World AIDS Day by helping us fill the Twitter
feed with real facts about HIV/AIDS, as well Tweets encouraging people
to change their perspective of those living with HIV/AIDS and eliminate
the unwarranted hatred or fear of brave people who live full lives
despite of being HIV-positive.

AHF encourages everyone to be part of the conversation and become an
activist by becoming a source of information for true facts on HIV/AIDS,
like the fact that HIV cannot be transmitted through simple hugging and
kissing. Since HIV stigma was born in part from fallacies and
misconceptions, accurate information on the virus and those living with
it is the most powerful tool everyone can wield against this
discriminatory stigma.

“Social technology is teaching us to be human again, and it is this
digital frontier that will help break the stigma around HIV,” said Azul
DelGrasso, AHF’s New Media Manager.

HIV stigma has caused some despicable actions around the world recently.
In Jodhpur, India, a family of six was literally run out of their
neighborhood after a local non-government organization (NGO) revealed to
neighbors that the mother and father in the family were both
HIV-positive. The neighbors beat the mother so badly she had to be
admitted to a local hospital, and the parents and four children were
forced to live under a railroad platform for 20 days until another NGO
helped to re-establish them in their neighborhood, this time with police
protection.

A highly-publicized recent incident of HIV stigma here in the U.S. took
place in Hershey, PA, where a 14-year-old boy was denied entry to the
private Milton Hershey School simply because he is HIV-positive. After a
long legal battle, the boy and his mother won a just settlement from the
school and, more importantly, the school publicly reversed its
discriminatory policy.

Spreading accurate information through AHF’s Twitter campaign is the
easiest way to fight HIV stigma – in fact, all one has to do is click
buttons at the bottom of the homepage for www.endhivstigma.org
and Tweets will automatically be created – but another important and
powerful way to combat the stigma is for people living with HIV to come
out of the closet about their condition and show that people today live
with HIV, and that there is nothing to fear from those who are positive
for the virus as long as everyone is informed and making the easy,
responsible efforts to prevent transmission, like using condoms and
getting tested regularly.

“Integration and social interaction breed acceptance and, ultimately,
comfort,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “The AIDS
movement needs the voices of people living with HIV. If you or someone
you love is HIV-positive, consider carefully the therapeutic benefits of
being open about your status and how you can make a contribution to the
battle against AIDS.”

About AHF

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is the largest non-profit HIV/AIDS
healthcare provider in the USA. AHF currently provides medical care
and/or services to more than 183,000 individuals in 27 countries
worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean Eastern Europe and
Asia. Additional information is available at www.aidshealth.org.